‘Like the Wild West’: Why Music Companies Are Cracking Down on Corporate Social Media

Trending on Billboard You open up TikTok or Instagram. The first video is a creator dancing to “Lush Life” by Zara Larsson. The next one is an influencer promoting a startup mattress brand, set to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.” After that, it’s Kylie Jenner lip-syncing to “Pretty Little Baby” by Connie Francis. Then it’s your favorite NCAA team, using AC/DC’s “Back in Black” in a hype video. The creators of each of those videos pulled their music from TikTok or Instagram’s vast song libraries, which make it easy for modern social media users to add fully-licensed tracks to their posts. But only some of them were actually allowed to do so. Related Here’s why: According to the rules of those platforms, the song libraries are strictly for personal use. Videos posted by businesses or paid influencers, on the other hand, must utilize a far more limited commercial library. If a brand wants to use a popular song that’s not there, they must get a sync license — just like any conventional advertisement on TV. Many companies have apparently missed that message. For years, large commercial accounts have liberally used well-known songs on social media to promote their brands — so much
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